


the galaxy's dreams

by shinydecamark



Category: Kirby (Video Games), Kirby - All Media Types
Genre: Creation Myth, Finiteverse, Gen, Headcanon, Oneshot, Worldbuilding, barely even recognizable as a kirby fic honestly, galacta knight is TECHNICALLY here too but only TECHNICALLY, no one in this fic is even mentioned by name
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:48:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23874946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinydecamark/pseuds/shinydecamark
Summary: Throughout the Milky Way, there is a great significance to dreams - their magic overflowing in multicolored fountains of light, their essence forming the lifeblood of a great many beings, their names taken as symbols of power or reverence. The reason for this has faded from the memory of nearly all living folk today, both mortal and god - once, the galaxy itself dreamed too, and its dreams still wander the stars; oblivious and full of wonder.---(creation myth built around the lore in the Finiteverse that Kirby and Void (and also Galacta but he's barely even relevant here) are of a race of beings known as Astral Dreams, believed to be the dreams of the Milky Way itself, embodiments of pure concept in an endless reincarnation cycle from god to mortal and back again. Kirby and Void, however, are special even by Astral Dream standards - representing infinity and nothing, respectively)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18
Collections: The Finiteverse





	the galaxy's dreams

**Author's Note:**

> this is... a strange thing to be my first ao3 post, considering it's really not much of anything like my usual writing style whatsoever!  
> i wrote this all in one night when i couldn't sleep, hopefully it makes sense??  
> whether or not this is truly exactly how it happened isn't clear, and in the grand scheme of things no longer matters

The galaxy awoke for the first time before it had ever slept, twinkles of starlight gently flickering into being across its void like bleary eyes opening to face a dawn. In this cold and quiet the galaxy was found alone; it was far too distant from its fellow galaxies to speak and thus found itself suffocated in that solitude.

So, in that neverending lonely silence, the newborn galaxy sought to pass the time the only way it could.

The galaxy slept, and as it slept, it dreamt. It had a great many dreams, of colors and lights and kindness and bleakness and darkness and cruelty.

The good and the bad, the dreams of positivity and the nightmares of suffering, all swirled about in the starlit emptiness. The galaxy loved each and every one, even the sharp and painful and wicked. It granted each a gift.

Each dream's heart fluttered awake in a newfound form. With their physical bodies, the dreams played and argued and fought, and in their childlike wonder and chaos parts of the dreamdust that made them up flew across the galaxy, settling onto lonely, ever-empty planets and chasing away the absence to fill it with life and excitement.

The galaxy watched with bottomless contentment as an infinite number of mortal lives fluttered into consciousness, and its lonely void grew filled.

But there was a fear that crept into the galaxy's heart, clinging to its every thought and dying the spaces in between the stars a colorless black. There was a nothing that it did not know how to fill.

There was a dream in between the dreams, a presence that was no presence at all. It was the very antithesis of dreams and nightmares itself, pure blank thoughtlessness. When the galaxy lay awake, the not-dream numbed at the back of its mind and chased away sleepy thoughts, and when it slept the not-dream slunk in between the feelings and emotions and filled the galaxy with a hollowness; a neverending loneliness like that the galaxy had once been borne into.

And in this loneliness, the not-dream whispered. _Please, dream me too,_ it would plead desperately. _I want to be like the others of my kind, I don't want this emptiness,_ it would beg in soft, foggy tones that threatened to blow away in the solar winds.

But the galaxy refused. It simply couldn't. The other dreams were naive, like children, and the even smaller beings they had populated the galaxy with were powerless in the face of a reality's thoughts. This not-dream could - and would - destroy them.

But nothingness could not be staved off forever, as that which wasn't could not be truly denied. Entropy crept in like shadows stretching below a setting sun, and the galaxy found itself out of ideas for new concepts to dream.

All but one, the one it had denied and rejected and desperately tried to chase away.

So, the galaxy fought sleep. It would listen to the stories of its dreams, the stories of the mortal dreams of its dreams, and count the great many stars that made up its conscious a hundred thousand innumerable times. It would create sculptures and paint its space with colors and starlight, and sing to its cosmos improvised songs to reassure that all was good, but its reassurances were truly more to itself.

Yet... even a galaxy could not stave off the call of sleep forever. As it sank into the blackness that was darker than darkness, it had not even the energy to cry out and tell its dreams the truth of what it had been trying to prevent.

And in that fitful sleep, it dreamt the not-dream. It dreamt of vacuum, of absence itself, of the hollow void in between stars and planets and dreams, of the total silence heard by those who could no longer hear, of the hollow thoughts pondered by one who could no longer think, of the sound of the voice spoken by one who could no longer speak. It dreamt of the loneliness as the beginning of everything, where no voice had called out to greet them. It did not dream, and it dreamt of nothing.

And, despite its every desperate measure, the galaxy could only watch agonizingly as the not-dream awoke, its heart twitching and writhing and clawing at the edges of being as the galaxy tried again and again to reject it. But there was nothing that could reject the spaces in between.

The child of void bled into its form, and the other dreams around it watched with ever-so-curious star-laden eyes; some among them cautious, some among them excited, some among them curious, some among them loathful.

But the not-dream did not feel anything in return except a twisting, painful desire. Its heart was empty, as it itself was the very concept of emptiness. It understood nothing but the desire to be filled, not because there was something it needed to live, but rather because there was nothing it understood to live for.

The galaxy knew this made the not-dream more dangerous than the cruelest nightmare, but when it cried out to its dreams, it found itself far too late.

The void itself sprung upon its fellow dreams given form, scratching and tearing and crying out. It cannibalized its kind, pulling away at and devouring their forms, desperately squabbling at their hearts. And as it tore its kin apart, it wept. Nothing could fill its nothingness, for it was nothing itself.

The galaxy wept in unison as its dreams were shredded and devoured, and it found itself alone with the not-dream it had created. It desperately, painfully wished that it could simply kill the not-dream, but once a concept had been created it could not simply be undone again.

However... this held true for the other dreams, as well. Their hearts still pulsed gently in the cold black, unable to be consumed by the void no matter how desperately it had tried. And knowing this, the galaxy formed a plan.

It gathered the hearts of those the not-dream had slaughtered, granting them the forms of the mortals they had once unintentionally brought into existence and sent them off on a spring breeze to live obliviously among fellow mortal folks, below the sight of dreaming concepts. Then, as they all disappeared into the vastness of space, the galaxy was left alone with the not-dream.

The not-dream watched unmovingly, choosing not to interfere. The galaxy eyed it with caution and mistrust, but felt its own heart twist as it spoke again for the first time since before it had been dreamt.

 _But I'm still empty,_ the void whispered painfully, its voice fleeting. _I don't want to be left here alone in my own hollowness,_ it pleaded with a desperation that filled the galaxy with fear and pity all at once.

And... the galaxy relented. Quietly and ever-so-gently, it held up the injured, trembling form of the void and lifted away its deified form, then leaving an oblivious slumbering mortal in its place. The mortal not-dream would still feel an absence, but in the trappings of a mortal body, perhaps it could find something to fill it that it did not need to tear away from someone else… And, in a fearful hope, the galaxy sent the not-dream off into the unknown to reside along its new kind.

And in this era of dreams having lost lucidity, a darker chaos arose. Conflict spiralled across reality, and the galaxy watched exhaustedly, unable to sleep amongst the clamor.

And in this hostile chaos, a great many mortal dreams died, and in their death they blossomed back into the forms of gods, but they were now much lesser. Their time as mortals had tainted the purity of their concepts; their wings had been clipped and now they spoke not to the galaxy, but only to the galaxy's inhabitants. Even at their most hostile, the dreams had never truly killed each other, but as they were now they could no longer even recognize each other as being of the same kind.

And embroiled in the conflicts of mortals and fallen gods, these fractured fading dreams died once again and returned to the coil of mortality, and so it ever cycled over and over in an infinite pattern stretched out in the stars.

And... the not-dream stood as no exception to this pattern. It found itself pulled around listlessly by the worlds it inhabited, only able to shape itself by what it was filled with. Again and again it was reborn, living as a mortal with a clawing hunger it did not understand for something that it could never have, and living as a god desperately molding itself in the image of whatever its worshippers had poured into it, whether it be kindness or cruelty.

And, eventually, a day came where the not-dream's emptiness was so thoroughly filled with pieces of darkness and nightmares and hatred and grudges and fury that it sought only to ravage the universe. It became the absence of care, the absence of hope, and it understood nothing but what it was told it was supposed to be, for it had no true purpose to fall back upon.

In a pained desperation, the galaxy, finding itself torn apart and ravaged, spoke in whispered hints and subtle coincidences to the mortal folk, guiding their hand to rise up against what the not-dream had become and was still becoming. And in its guiding pleas, the galaxy asked not for them to attempt to destroy it as had been done countless times before, but rather to imprison it.

It was a temporary solution, but on a cosmic scale, all solutions were.

And so, four heroes came together and sealed away the latest incarnation of the not-dream, where it slept a dreamless sleep in an eternal solitude until the next being sought to awaken it.

With that, the galaxy slowly began to heal from the carnage wrought, and as it healed it thought upon its regrets. It wondered if it had inflicted the harshest cruelty of all upon its dreams, and yet at the same time it thought upon the myriad feelings and experiences the dreams experienced now that they would have never been able to experience had they remained concept-gods, drifting through starlight like water. Perhaps there were no correct choices, only choices that were.

And, as the dark and empty snuffed out like a soft glow enveloping the night, and the nightmares drawn out by the not-dream's wrath found themselves chased back into the crevices in which they hid seeking solace, the galaxy found itself again for the first time in forever in a peace and quiet.

And in that peace and quiet, and in that absence of absence, the galaxy dared to dream one more little dream. A dream that would serve as a hope... and yet also an apology.

The galaxy dared to dream of optimism and light and excitement and colors, but also gentle winds and rest and innocence and friendship.

The galaxy dared to dream of love and heartbreak. Of sunny days and clear skies, and of the sing-song of rain pitter-pattering on rooftops. Of elements, in harmony and opposed in an endless push-pull. Of creation and destruction and preservation. Of everything it had ever dreamt before, filling up with love and light and chaos and hope.

The galaxy dared to dream of the only thing that could fill a neverending nothingness.

The galaxy dared to dream of infinity.

And in that little dream of everythingness there was an innocent, oblivious heart; hopeful and wide-eyed and unsure of its place in the reality it had been born into, so much later than the rest of its kind.

And then gently, ever so gently, the galaxy sent its final dream off on a spring breeze, off into that lonely unknown among the infinite stars where the dream would find a thousand destinies and become entwined with a thousand more.

And as the kind quiet - as always ever-so-impermanent - silently ebbed away into cacophony and chaos once again, the galaxy rested.


End file.
